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The lacquer of virtue

by
February 2006, no. 278

Timing Is Everything: A life backstage at the opera by Moffatt Oxenbould

ABC Books, $55 hb, 728 pp

The lacquer of virtue

by
February 2006, no. 278

To state the case bluntly, is there in fact any place for opera in the twenty-first century? What is the use of opera? Many would say that it is a moribund art form, traditional and arthritic, class-ridden, a minority and élitist pursuit of an arcane society harbouring secret rituals in the mode of cabbalists with their adherence to vision and the genealogy of seers. My questions suggest some kind of crisis. Yet they are unanswerable because, like all art at a profound level, opera is useless.

Timing Is Everything: A life backstage at the opera

Timing Is Everything: A life backstage at the opera

by Moffatt Oxenbould

ABC Books, $55 hb, 728 pp

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